Night and Day (45 page)

I nodded and started walking. He fell in beside me.

“And what if it had been her?

He smiled. “I would have taken her aside and used same story about living in the
neighborhood. With an added kicker, that I was grooming you to be a regular evening snack.” He
paused. “That would have hit home for her. Did you see Garcia’s neck?”

I shook my head. “Human. We don’t see in low light as well as you.”

“He had half a dozen little scars. Some older, some fresh. She’s getting more from him than
a good boning.”

“And maybe not even that. Maybe he’s just an evening...snack.”

Though I hadn’t seen the cuts on Garcia’s neck, I’d seen them elsewhere. That’s the way the
high-class uptown slurp clubs operate. Little silver plate with a fancy little knife. And human
employees known as refreshments. Cut. Lick. Cut. Lick. It was ugly, but not as ugly as the not-so-high-class slurp clubs. They ran things more like a buffet, with the diners free to eat as much as they
liked.

We passed the steps up to Garcia’s apartment. “Think they’re watching?”

“Doubt it,” I said. “You gave him a good scare. He won’t want to piss you off by peering
out the window at us.”

“Think he’ll call the cops?”

“She may want to, but he won’t do it,” I said. “He started it, you’re a Vee, the cops who
would show up are Vees. And he’s, as you made clear to him, a bloodsac. How do you think that’s
going to play out in his head?”

“Not good.” Brenner was silent for a moment, then said, “Hope you weren’t offended by
me calling him a bloodsac. I did it for effect. I’d never call you that.”

I laughed. “I’ve been called bloodsac and a lot worse.”

“So are we blown?”

I shook my head. “Don’t think so. Your story was credible, and they’re not going to ask any
questions. By tomorrow night, the job should be done and it won’t matter anyway.”

It was about twenty after ten when we got back to the car. The rest of our stroll around the
block had been quiet and without incident.

“I think we’ll skip the return visit to follow her home,” I said as he slid behind the wheel.
“We already know she’ll head home around midnight, and she’s going to be watching her rear-view
mirror very carefully on the drive uptown. No reason to spook her again.”

“So what’s next for tonight?”

“I go to bed early for a change. You spend a few hours with Sara, going over the client
meeting tomorrow night. She’s been in on a few, and knows how it works. Pay attention to what she
tells you. We like satisfied customers, and that doesn’t happen when the client cops an attitude
because of something you say.”

Night and Day Investigations operated out of the Triangle Building, where Expedition and
Second meet at Hennessy, overlooking Expedition Square. Thanks to some financial wheeling and
dealing by my late partner, we owned the building. Which meant I owned half the building. Bain
owned the other half.

Brenner pulled the car to the curb on Second behind my Jeep and we got out. The square
was quiet, the streets mostly empty. Even almost five and a half years after the war, and more than
two years after humans were released from the internment camps, a lot of people stayed off the
streets after dark. It takes a long time for the bad memories to fade.

“Mr. Welles,” Benny, the night security guard in the lobby, said with a nod as we passed. I
smiled and nodded back. It was the least I could do. Well, that and the nice raise I’d given him last
fall after he killed a vampire intent on turning me.

As usual, I avoided the antique elevator and went up the stairs to the fourth floor, Brenner
right behind me. After I assumed control of Night and Day after Joshua’s death, one of the first
things I’d done was get an elevator company in to check it. They said it was fine, a hundred percent.
That was good to hear. No lawsuits from the families of those killed when they hurtled to their
death in our elevator. But I still didn’t like the way it creaked going up and down, so I stuck to the
stairs.

Sara was behind her desk when we came in. Sara Tindell. Small, blonde, cute. And destined
to remain that way forever, unless misadventure of some sort stopped her heart from beating and
ended her life. We have two secretaries at Night and Day. Sara for the night investigator, Cynthia
DiPierro during the day for me.

She smiled at Brenner, then gave me a bigger smile. After Joshua was murdered, we’d had a
little....well, I guess you’d call it a fling. It never quite reached the level of an affair.

I hadn’t initiated it. She had. Male Vees seem to lose their sex drive along with their
erections when they turn. Or maybe the fact that they have no lead in their pencil, as Sara put it,
made it unimportant to them. Female Vees, on the other hand, apparently retained their needs, as
evidenced by Mrs. Maxwell. And Sara.

I’d put Sara off as long as I could, but it came down to either going along with it or losing
her as a secretary. And she’s a good secretary. So I took one for Night and Day Investigations.

It was okay. I think she enjoyed it more than I did. I could never quite get past the low body
temperature. I like my women warm.

After a few months, it went from weekly to every other week to monthly to done. It wasn’t
anything I did. Maybe she got what she wanted. Maybe she sensed my unease. Maybe I didn’t hit the
sweet spot for her in that department. Whatever it was, she stopped suggesting it, and that was that.
At least for the time being.

“Everything go all right?” she asked.

“More or less. Mrs. Maxwell’s gorilla boyfriend decided to raise a fuss, but Brenner tamed
him pretty quickly.”

“Nice,” she said, looking up at Brenner. “Going back up there to see her home?”

I shook my head. “No, we’ve got what we need, and I don’t want to scare her, have her say
something to her husband about men following her. She can get home on her own, and tomorrow
night we’ll dump it in the husband’s lap.” I paused. “Speaking of which, I’d like you to go through
the presentation with Brenner. Help him on the do’s and don’ts of how to close out a case with the
client.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

“Sleeping. I have about twenty-five pawn shops I need to hit in the next couple of days, see
if I can find Mrs. Dillon’s ring. Then connect it with her thieving junkie nephew and close it out.”

“You got a call a couple of hours ago.” She pulled the pad on her desk close. “Said his name
was Shuster.”

“Marc Shuster?”

“Didn’t leave a first name or a number. When I told him you’d be back in the office later, he
said he’d call at eleven-thirty.”

I checked my watch. Eleven-thirty was forty-five minutes away, and I wasn’t going to sit
around the office waiting for his call. I could be home in ten minutes.

“When he calls back, give him my home number,” I said. “I’ll talk to him before I hit the
sack.” I turned to Brenner. “Nice work out there on the street. I’ll see you at 9:30 tomorrow night,
and we’ll go over the case one more time before Maxwell shows up.”

He nodded.

“See you tomorrow night, Sara.”

She smiled. And was still smiling as I went out the door.

I hope you have enjoyed
Chapter One of
Bleeding Sky
. The full book will be available Friday, December 6, 2013, as a
Kindle e-book or in paperback on amazon.com.

Don’t forget to leave a review of
Night and Day
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what you think, what you liked, what you didn’t like, what worked, what didn’t. And I’m sure
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http://www.vee-for-vampire.com.
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And thanks for reading!

Ken